HE TURNED OVER in his sleep. Something slid off his hip and struck the floor with a bang like a gunshot. He sat up straight, his heart bounding off his breastbone. He dove for the pistol under his pillow, then remembered that he wasn’t one of the noir heroes he’d been watching all night and that he didn’t own a gun.
Sunlight had found its way into the chamber, gradually dispelling his jumbled dreams and reflecting off the plastic DVD case that had fallen from the bed: Tyrone Power’s cruelly handsome face with a cigarette dangling from his lip and the title, in blood-red letters gnawed around the edges: NIGHTMARE ALLEY.
Appropriate.
He climbed out from under the covers, spilling several more cases from the bedspread like shards of fallen plaster; wondered for a moment why he was still fully clothed, then remembered.
He was worse than an alcoholic; he was a bijou binger. Any day now he’d be checking himself into the Harrison Ford Clinic to get straight.
Harriet had given him a countertop cook stove for his last birthday. It performed the services of both a traditional and a convection oven, a toaster, and a microwave; he wasn’t quite sure, but he suspected it was a prop from a Transformer film. Operating it was a good deal more complicated than threading film through a projector, but he’d mastered the basics. Moving like a sleepwalker, he placed an English muffin on the toaster grate, twisted the dial, started a cup of water heating in the microwave, and opened a jar of instant coffee. He promised himself to install the usual kitchen appliances in the projection booth. His own creature comforts had taken second place behind putting the theater back on its Prohibition-era feet. It was bad enough he’d been forced to close the mezzanine men’s room to the public in order to install a shower for his own use; he couldn’t help feeling he’d turned his back on his customers. But he felt grungy in yesterday’s clothes, and his welcome in the Bruins locker room at UCLA had long since worn out.
While he waited to eat, he retrieved his phone from a pocket and dialed a number from memory. It rang several times before Kym Trujillo answered. She sounded out of breath.
“Valentino!” she said. “Ready to check in? I can’t think of anyone else your age who could hold his own in the conversation in the cafeteria.”
Valentino had called the Motion Picture Country Home.
He said, “You sound like you should check in yourself. Should I call back when you’re through moving furniture?”
“I wish. I just helped two nurses hoist a resident from the floor in the TV room. You know how much weight those stuntmen put on after they retire?”
“Is he all right?”
“He’s fine, but the serving cart he fell on will never be the same. I’m okay, too, just a couple of cracked ribs and a ruptured spleen. Thanks for asking.”
He knew this for an affectionate dig. She’d been Admissions director long enough to have faced every issue connected with caring for the elderly and egocentric, and she enjoyed her work every bit as much as he did his. “I’d like to arrange a visit with one of your residents.”
“If it’s the stuntman, you’ll have to wait until the doc finishes pulling a twelve-piece tea service out of his belly button.”
“It’s Roy Fitzhugh.”
Her tone warmed; her breathing had returned to normal, as he knew it would. She was five-two and ninety pounds of pure energy. “I know Roy. I admitted him myself. He’s a hoot. Hang on.” She came back on the line three minutes later, sounding subdued. “I talked to one of his nurses. He has his good days and his bad. Today’s not so good. You might try later, after he’s had his afternoon nap.”
“He was sharp as a tack last time.”
“Still is, if you catch him during his window.”
He thanked her and said he’d call back. The exchange had sobered him. With age came wisdom, but it could steal back all it gave.
The toaster oven dinged, startling him; he’d forgotten all about breakfast. Through the glass in the microwave door, he saw that the cup of water was boiling, and for a confused second he didn’t know which to address first.
The odor of burnt toast made up his mind. He tipped down the oven door, transferred the blackened English muffin to the typewriter stand he used for a dining table, fished out the steaming cup, and stirred in powdered coffee. The breadbox contained only an empty package; he’d used the last of the muffins. He scraped off the worst of the char and broke his fast crunching incinerated carbohydrates and burning his tongue with molten brew.
Not his best morning. He had a sinking feeling worse was yet to come.
He swallowed the last crumb of charcoal and let his coffee cool while he made his way by phone through a succession of robotic voices—some of them computer-generated, others just bored—arriving finally at one he recognized.
“West Hollywood Homicide, Clifford.” A contralto voice, perfectly in keeping with its owner, a flame-haired, six-foot-plus Elle Macpherson type who had scorned the runway for the Los Angeles Police Department.
“Sergeant, this is Valentino. Do you remember me?”
“How could I forget? It isn’t every day I crack a fifty-year-old murder case with nothing to work with but a skeleton and an amateur Columbo hopped up on Orville Redenbacher.”
In that case, he thought, you’re in for a treat.
Aloud he said, “That’s getting to be a long time ago. I’m planning the grand reopening of The Oracle soon. Look for your free pass in the mail.”
“Kind of you, but you didn’t have to call. The mail room staff here is almost as efficient as the Criminal Intelligence Division.”
“Actually, that’s not the reason I called.”
“Why am I not surprised?” Her tone of guarded goodwill had begun to evaporate.
It was gone entirely when he finished explaining what he wanted.
“You’re worse than just in a rut; you’re going backwards. The mainframe hard-drive has enough to remember without a murder investigation as old as Sputnik. The only file would be in hard copy in the bowels of City Hall, deep and dark in the center of the earth, fastened with gates and bars.”
Valentino remembered his Sunday-school lessons well enough to appreciate her grasp of Biblical text. “But it is there?”
“Unless it went into the incinerator under LBJ. Why should I send a uniform down there to dig through the boxes with six new complaints on my desk this morning, and eight left over from last week?”
“Have someone show me where they are and I’ll do the digging. It’s what I’m trained for.”
“There was something in my training about not letting civilians monkey with open cases.”
“Records are public property, aren’t they?”
“So file a request under Freedom of Information. You’ll have it by Christmas.”
“It’s just research, Sergeant. I’m not looking to bring anyone to justice, even if whoever killed Van Oliver is alive and getting around on hip replacements. There’s an acknowledgment in it for the LAPD when we go public. Your chief’s pretty hot on shaking loose personnel to provide technical advice on movie sets; a story like this would get your PR department off Entertainment Tonight and on CNN.”
“If you’re threatening to go over my head, I’ve already got a permanent part there from all the traffic that came ahead of you.”
“Sergeant, you know I’d never do that.” But his heart was back playing handball against his ribs. The last thing he wanted to do was raise her ire.
She fell silent long enough for him to hear telephones ringing on her end, more bored voices asking for names and addresses.
“Well, I’m not letting you into the basement. I’ll send a man down when I can spare him. Next week, maybe.”
“If you could do it today, I’ll credit you as a consultant. I’m hoping to interview a surviving witness this afternoon. I’d like to go in with all the information I can get.”
The line got muffled, as if she’d cupped a hand over the mouthpiece in order to release a string of oaths. When she came back on, her tone was chilly but calm. “If you’re asking me would I like to be in pictures, the answer would be ‘Over my dead body,’ but we don’t sling that one around in Homicide. You’ll get it when you get it; if you get it.”
“I’ll be in my office at the university till noon. Do you still have the addr—?”
He was talking to a dial tone.